Torture involves an intrinsic evil.
This is not quite accurate. “Once a Catholic, always a Catholic” is not what the church believes. Rejecting what the church teaches effectively separates one from the church.
I’m not aware that either party is advocating torture, therefore it is not currently a political issue, therefore it doesn’t belong on the list. If you can demonstrate that any individual running for office is calling for torture (e.g. waterboarding), make your case.
No one is advocating abortion either. It is their non-action on abortion that is the problem. Similarly, it is the non-action on torture - a refusal to end it - that is an issue. If you can fault a politician for letting abortion stand, you can fault a politician for letting a policy stand that allows torture.
Well, yes it does. The idea behind the list is that these items take precedent -are an absolute veto - over issues not on the list. So if you add more things to the list, you increase the chances that you will be faced with deciding between two non-negotiables. This undermines the whole concept of a non-negotiable item being fundamentally different from items without this veto power.
But we are discussing values implicitly because the issues that are non-negotiable are non-negotiable because of the values they uphold.
This is a strawman argument. No one is claiming that the possible benefits of abortion are in any way relevant. What they are claiming is the possible benefits of voting for someone who, incidentally favors allowing abortion, are relevant. The benefits cited have nothing to do with abortion. Their only link is that the politician who would promote those benefits also happens to promote tolerance of abortion. One need not abandon his belief in abortion being intrinsically evil to recognize such a benefit.
"The Code of Canon Law currently does not recognize that someone can leave the Catholic Church. You might become a non-practicing member, but the Church’s laws consider anyone baptized Catholic to always be Catholic".
Not exactly:
In the original 1983 Code of Canon Law there was a section that dealt with “formal defection” from the Catholic Church. What qualified as “formal defection” was rather vague and various opinions abounded. In the early to mid 80’s its quite possible that a well meaning priest sincerely tried to interpret what formal defection meant or was given certain instructions from his Bishop’s office. In 2006 the Pontifical Commission for Legislative Texts issued a “Notification” that narrowly defined formal defection.However in 2009 any reference to formal defection was abolished from the code of canon law.…
Is it OK to ignore the killing of babies once in a great while, as long as we don’t ignore it all of the time?
Because the 5 issues cited are currently in the “public square.” Those running for elected office will, if elected, have authority to advance or derail the legalizing of immoral actions. For those immoral acts which have already been legalized, an elected official who negotiates to limit or reduce the evil effects with a purpose to eventually eliminate the legality of immoral acts would, in my opinion, be acting morally.
Issues 1, 2, 5 and 6 involve distributive justice. Shame on the community that does nothing for the alien, widow or orphan. If we believe the state is not doing enough, we can always do more personally – charity has no upper limit. Issues 3 and 4 always involve prudential judgment. Pick the candidate whose rationale most agrees with your own.
When your “once in a great while” empowers someone who will work tirelessly to protect the legal killing of those babies you are infrequently ignoring, I think it’s safe to say it’s a problem.
And what constitutes “empowering” such a person? I mean is there anything we can do or fail to do (besides voting for him) that can be considered “empowering such a person”?
The purpose of the list is not the tell us which issues are in the public square and which are not. The purpose of the list is to distinguish between issues that are “non-negotiable” (whatever that means) from issues that are in some sense negotiable. When you say this list is limited to the items it has because of which issues cross a certain threshold of public awareness, you are implying that there may be many other issues that are also non-negotiable, but are omitted from the list by their not meeting this somewhat arbitrary threshold. This makes it difficult to use this list effectively. When you find yourself torn between two issues - one of which is on the list and the other is not, it may be that your idea of what is sufficiently “in the public square” is not the same as the writers of this list. The two issues might actually be equally non-negotiable. How then do you decide between two issues that are both non-negotiable, but you cannot have them both? For instance torture vs. gay marriage. Gay marriage is on the list. Torture is not. If your voting decision only allows you to support one of these issues, which one should you support?
I believe the term was coined by Catholic Answers for use in its voters guide a couple of election cycles ago.
Thank you for this. Well put. This I’m thinking might be a reason why the bishops say in “Faithful Citizenship” it is not their intent to tell Catholics for whom to vote for, or against, and instead they leave it up to each individual to make their own choice. Because the real world isn’t always easy or everything in black and white. The bishops even say Catholics often face difficult choices about how to vote.
Torture is evil.
That’s one of my problems with the term “non-negotiable.” It is so black and white that a person following those guidelines would almost never be able to vote. There are very, very few candidates who are 100% in line with Catholic teaching on those matters and if you vote for someone who isn’t isn’t 100% in line, you have basically said that those issues are, in fact, negotiable.